OREANDA-NEWS. Mechel PAO (MICEX: MTLR, NYSE: MTL), one of the leading Russian mining and metals companies, reports that the Expert Council of Russia’s Industry and Trade Ministry’s Industrial Development Fund approved a loan for Mechel’s Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant (ChMK PAO) to implement a project for production of rails, beams and other structural rolls meant for export.

The project’s cost totals 1.52 billion rubles, including 300 million rubles to be loaned by the Industrial Development Fund. The project includes acquiring technological equipment in order to set up manufacturing of products according to European standards on the basis of Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant’s universal rolling mill.

Part of export-oriented products within the project’s framework will be made this year. The project is planned to be fully launched in the second quarter of 2019. Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant had already received a European certificate of compliance for its beams, and the plant has the status of a potential rail supplier for Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s railroad operator.

«The Industrial Development Fund’s financial support will enable the plant to implement the project and make high-margin products that are in demand abroad. European and Middle Eastern markets have a stable demand for quality rails, beams and other types of structural rolls. The plant already has requests for future supplies. As Mechel Group owns a well-developed international service and sales network, we can quickly enter foreign markets with our new products,» Mechel-Steel Management Company OOO’s Chief Executive Officer Andrey Ponomarev noted.